Booting Installation CD on computer that can't boot from CD.

hochl · n00b Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Posts: 39

Hello,

I have a problem installing gentoo from cdrom: My computer has a working cdrom drive, but it's a SCSI drive and the SCSI card has no boot eeprom. That means I cannot boot from CD

The question is if it's possible to boot from CD by using a floppy disk that then boots the CD. I figure it might be possible, but I haven't got any pointer to more information on this topic. I think the setup would work with syslinux, a kernel image and some special boot parameters. Can anyone please help me? Thanks in advance!

H.

P.S.: SCSI adapter info for my machine
Tekram DC390/AM53C974

patrickbores · Posted: Thu May 13, 2004 7:21 pm Post subject:

I've never done this personally, but it appears that Slackware has some floppy images that are able to do this. Look here:

ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/bootdisks/

The README file explains each image and what it does. Find the one that's right for you, and write it to a floppy with rawrite or dd.

HTH,

Patrick
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hochl · n00b Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Posts: 39

Unfortunately, this won't work since the installation disks have a different kernel. I haven't tried, but I'm pretty sure the boot cd has a specialized kernel with certain modules so the slackware boot disks will not work. Maybe with modifications.

Other ideas? I think this problem is pretty standard for older machines, there must be someone out there who knows a working solution!

H.

AlterEgo · Veteran Joined: 25 Apr 2002 Posts: 1619

Maybe, Smart boot manager can help you out, although I'm not too sure about scsi.

nixnut · Posted: Fri May 14, 2004 6:08 pm Post subject:

IG1: How to install Gentoo from a boot floppy:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=8690
Boot Disk Installation HOWTO discussion:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27951
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